“He is one of the choice ones of the Earth” – Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams
Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, was the author of the Declaration of Independence which severed the thirteen American colonies from British rule. He was also one of the most vocal and influential supporters of the French Revolution of 1789. And, as president, he solidified a lasting relationship between the fledging United States and France.
All that that and more began in 1784 when Jefferson was appointed by the Congress of the Confederation to join the political mission in Paris of two celebrated Americans, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams (later the second president of the United States) in Paris. Jefferson carried the rather grandiose tittle of Minister Plenipotentiary for Negotiating Treaties of Amity and Commerce with Great Britain and other European nations. Within a year, Jefferson he was appointed Minster to France, when Benjamin Franklin returned to America. Over the next five years, Jefferson helped shape the foreign policies of the United States, especially in strengthening its relationship with France.
Jefferson’s trade and diplomatic successes were few. In 1786, on a failed mission, Jefferson and John Adams, the U.S. Ambassador to Britain, were ridiculed by George III King of England when they proposed various trade treaties. Jefferson labeled the king’s reception as “ungracious.” Adams’ grandson later reported that George III turned his back on Jefferson as a public insult. Later, Jefferson negotiated treaties with Prussia in 1785 and Morocco in 1786, and a serious consular agreement with France in 1789.
Jefferson also had an impact on the French Revolution of 1789, becoming a friend and companion to the Marquis de Lafayette, a hero of the American colonies’ earlier revolution. Jefferson was in Paris during the storming of the Bastille and provided guidance to Lafayette when the Marquis created the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
While he could not join the crucial 1787 Constitution Convention because he was serving in Paris, Jefferson strongly argued for the proposed Bill of Rights. Two years later, he returned to America. He publicly opposed the violence that accompanied the Revolution and other excesses, while still supporting France. He was elected the third president of the United States (1801-1809) and became one of the most respected presidents of the young nation.
While in Paris, Jefferson immersed himself in French arts and culture which had a big influence on his own personal tastes. The neoclassical architecture he saw in Paris and other European cities influenced the designs of Monticello, his Virginia home, as well the Virginia State Capitol and the University of Virginia, State Capitol, the United States Capitol and the White House (the official residence of the president).
With the American artist John Trumbull as his guide, Jefferson visited many of the art academies and art salons of Paris, which helped nurture the idea that American artists might challenge those of Europe. His attitude toward the arts was clearly revealed in a letter to James Madison, in which he stated: “You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts. But it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world & procure them it’s praise.”
Jefferson commissioned the renowned sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon to create works on behalf of the United States, for Virginia, and for busts of himself, George Washington, and the Marquis de Lafayette. He soon acquired an extensive art collection which he later exhibited in his home of Monticello.
He was fascinated by the elegant and playful gardens he encountered. His friend and often traveling companion, André Thouin, the noted French botanist and Director of the Jardin du Roi/Jardin des Plantes in Paris, would annually send Jefferson boxes of seeds from around the world. Beyond the decorative uses of botany, Jefferson also studied the crops and farming techniques of Western Europe, planning to apply them in America. After a tour of the English countryside with John Adams in 1786, Jefferson loved the concept of “pleasure gardening,” which he applied to the grounds of Monticello.
Jefferson was also interested in science and technology. His friend, the Marquis de Condorcet, Permanent Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences, introduced him to leading scientists in France and other countries. In a debate with the French naturalist, Comte de Buffon, Jefferson disproved the man’s theory that the North American climate caused the degeneration of humans and wildlife.
During his five years in Paris, Jefferson expanded both his culinary and wine knowledge, and came to appreciate French table customs. Thinking ahead, as he traveled throughout the vineyards of Western Europe, Jefferson took detailed notes imagining how America might compete with Europe in producing fine wines. He also used the “pell mell” seating arrangements found in many French salons, rather than the formal “order of precedence” seating arrangement of the British.
On February 28, 1787, the forty-four-year-old Jefferson left Paris for a three-month, twelve-hundred-mile journey to southern France and northern Italy. He wrote about his plan:” I am now about setting out on a journey to the South of France, one object of which is to try the mineral waters there for the restoration of my hand (recently injured), but another is to visit all the seaports where we have trade, and to hunt up all the inconveniences under which it labours, to get them rectified. I shall visit and carefully examine too the Canal of Languedoc.”
He paid his own way. None of his Paris servants went with him. In Dijon, though, he hired Petit Jean, who accompanied him through the next several months. Along the route, Jefferson was educated in the fine art of wine production. He learned about the unique qualities of the reds and the whites from their cultivation to how they were preserved in transport from wineries to markets, sold, and distributed.
He made efforts to engage the local people he encountered on his travels, writing in a journal which he labeled: “Notes of a Tour into the Southern Parts of France, &c.,” and personal letters. He wrote: “You must ferret the people out of their hovels as I have done, look into their kettles, eat their bread, loll on their beds under pretense of resting yourself, but in fact to find if they are soft. You will feel a sublime pleasure in the course of this investigation.”
He visited Nimes and the Maison Carrée, the Roman temple after which he modeled the Virginia state capitol. He paused to admire the spectacular Pont du Gard, part of an aqueduct constructed in 19 B.C. He enthused about the sunshine in Aix-en-Provence writing: “I am now in the land of corn, wine, oil, and sunshine. What more can man ask of heaven? If I should happen to die at Paris, I will beg of you to send me here, and have me exposed to the sun. I am sure it will bring me to life again.”
He was fascinated by the engineering of the Canal of Languedoc (now, the Canal du Midi), which dates to the seventeenth century and connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean. He wrote: “I have passed through the Canal from its entrance into the Mediterranean at Cette to this place, and shall be immediately at Toulouse, in the whole 200 American miles, by water; having employed in examining all its details nine days…to see the manner in which water has been collected to supply the canal. I dismounted my carriage from its wheels, placed it on the deck of a light bark, and was thus towed on the canal instead of the post road… Of all the methods of travelling I have ever tried this is the pleasantest…When fatigued I take seat in my carriage where, as much at ease as if in my study, I read, write, or observe.”
Jefferson reached Bordeaux late in May then continued on to La Rochelle, Nantes, and the north shore of the Loire. On June 10, after traveling through several small villages and enduring carriage breakdowns, he arrived in Paris, three months after his remarkable and secret journey.
Jefferson’s life in Paris and his travels in France heavily influenced his attitudes toward the arts, science, technology, social customs, dining, wine and so much more. The reported 86 crates of fine art, housewares, cooking and dining supplies, clocks, literature, and scientific objects were delivered to his home in Monticello, which Jefferson remodeled in the neo-classic style of France.
John Pekich is an author, educator, actor and longtime Francophile with a special affinity for the South of France. He may be reached at cal20j01@aol.com.
